


He gets it from his mother

by BlueLya (Sakilya)



Category: Blue Beetle (Comic), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 10:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakilya/pseuds/BlueLya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a prompt from <a href="http://yjanon-meme.livejournal.com/477.html?thread=454877#t454877">YJ-anon meme</a>, where Nightwing is forced to inform Jaime's family about his kidnapping. What he gets, in the form of the Reyes family and three of Jaime's close friends, isn't <i>quite</i> what he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He gets it from his mother

Nightwing was not the one who normally hesitated. He was the sort of hero who threw himself out into the night air, knowing that he would fall safely. He was the kind who would give it all if only to save one life. He was a bird and a bat, flying in both light and darkness with utmost ease. He almost never hesitated.

Except when he did.

Knocking on the door of the Reyes estate was suddenly making him wish to be back in Gotham. The glum alleys of stone and steel would feel comfortable in different to the nice neighbourhood. The least he could do for himself was letting the night shroud him, but the task before him still had to happen. 

Another bout of explanations.

Gar was gone, and Bart, and Jaime. M’gann had had silent ice in her eyes, an unspoken promise for revenge to the man who took her brother (Nightwing slightly feared for both his and Kaldur’s lives if she ever found out what really happened). Wally… he didn’t want to think about Wally at the moment, but he had heard that the Flash had been extra helpful ever since the news reached him, doing whatever small work the fastest man alive could.

And they were superheroes. No matter what illusion there might be about their lives everyone knew they all lived with one foot in the grave. But this? This was a civilian family to a hero who was practically new, had barely tested his wings, and who was now gone in the claws of The Light.

Dick sighed, pulling his fingers thought his hair and trying to make up his mind. His fault. His responsibility. He had to tell another family of a lost son. And still he just stood and stared at the wood in front of him.

In the end the door opened on its own accord.

On the other side stood a woman with a kind, but tired (Dick already felt himself wince, that was his fault) face. “You’ve been standing here for the last ten minutes.” She had her hair in a low pony-tail, and the scrubs on her body exposed her work as a nurse.

“Mrs Reyes?” Nightwing began, repeating the information about the civilian Jaime Reyes in his head. Bianca Reyes. This was his mother. “I’m sorry to bother you this late. My name is Nightwing and… it’s about Jaime.”

Silence fell, and for a moment Dick wondered if she would close the door on his face. Instead she stepped up, looking around the darkness of the house quickly before moving back and opening the door fully.

“Come in.” She told him and he stepped over the doorstep. Inside he swiftly removed his shoes before following Bianca deeper into the house. He hadn’t actually been here before.  As a bat and leader of the young justice he had, of course, seen pictures, but not like this.

It wasn’t hard to imagine Jaime coming down the stairs that very moment. How long had they waited before realizing their son wouldn’t?

Bianca led him to the living room, and they weren’t alone. There were five more people in the room. A man who Nightwing guessed was Jaime’s father, two girls and one boy all around Jaime’s age. Next to the guy a small girl with pig-tails was sleeping. She stirred as her mother and Nightwing entered the room.

The man stood up and the teens quieted down too look at them. Bianca smiled sweetly to the boy on the couch.

“Paco, be a love and put Milagro to bed, will you?” ‘Paco’ took a quick look towards Nightwing, as if scanning for a threat. Finding none, he nodded and gathered Milagro into his arms. The movement made the little girl wake and she shook her head, clinging to her carrier.

“Donwanna go to sleep.” Milagro squirmed, fighting to stay awake. Even though Dick could see it was a losing battle it was amazing how she managed to glare at Dick though hazy eyes. “Wanna be awake when Jaime is home.” And he felt his heart break just a little bit more.

“Come on Big Girl, even heroes need to sleep.” Paco carried Milagro away, and it already looked like Jaime’s little sister had fallen asleep again on his shoulder.

As soon as they were out of sight, Nightwing could feel the looks from four pair of eyes watching him. He really had to fight the impulse of just turning around and leave.

“Nightwing… was it?” Alberto Reyes started and gestured towards a chair. Nightwing took the invite to sit down. “Now what has happened to Jaime?” Then he put up his hand even before Nightwing had begun, “And please don’t try to sugar-coat things. I just want to know where my boy is.” 

Dick took a deep breath.

“As of this morning, Mount Justice was attacked by a couple of Villains. Beetle… Jaime and two other members of Young Justice fought them and were captured. I was… unable to protect them.” Dick sunk his head, knitting his fingers together on his knees. “We don’t have the reason to believe they are dead but…”

“Will they be harmed?” One of the girls, the one with a carrot-coloured hair and freckles all over her face, asked, straight to the point and Nightwing suddenly felt himself loss for words. No. He wanted to say. Kaldur and Artemis is with them, they won’t let anything happen to them. (But how much can they do anyway, without blowing cover. Where does the line go?).

“I’m sorry…” was all he said, instead.

Alberto shook his head. “Don’t apologize to us, son.” Then his eyes grew hard as steel and burning like a fire. “Tell us what to do.”

Behind his glasses, Nightwing’s eyes widened in realization.

“What?” He startled, shaking his head. “No! You can’t, I mean…  This is a matter for the Justice League.” From her place next to her husband, Bianca raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him. 

“I may be only a civilian in your eyes. But I am Jaime’s mother, and therefore I am also the mother of Blue Beetle.” Bianca crossed her arms and glared at him from above, while it made Nightwing feel very small, he believed the effect would be the same even when he stood taller. “If my son is out there somewhere, I’m going to find him.”

Nightwing got a strange feeling he wanted to call Bianca Reyes Ma’am from now on.

“Who took him?” That was the other girl, and Dick had already given up the fight for keeping secrets. He’d said enough to say it all.

“They are a criminal organisation calling themselves The Light.”

The black-haired girl looked thoughtful as she rested her chin in her hand. She glanced up. “I’ve heard about them. They are big-shots, like, the biggest baddest of them all.” She said and checked for clarification.

“We have the means to expect that, yes.”

The carrot-top strangely enough seemed to shine up on this.

“I can check with my aunt. If they are that big, she might have heard something.” She gave as an idea. Jaime’s parents sent a glance between each other and Dick really felt like he had missed out on something. Clearly he had as Paco entered the room, this time without Milagro in tow.

“She’s not going to tell you a thing if she believes you’re going after them, Brenda” He snorted before dumping down to his original place. Brenda sent a glare his way, together with a fist.

“My Tia Amparo knows I’m going to do it, so she might as well help me on the way.” A smile.  “Anyhow. Even with everything she says, she kind of like having a local superhero.”

“…that she can call when there’s trouble.” A roll of his eyes.

“Which means she’s in his debt.”

“She’s still not letting you out of the house.”                         

“Wait.” Nightwing interrupted the conversation getting more and more bizarre. They turned back their attention to him. He pulled his fingers through his hair in a fluid motion. “You don’t understand. This is on a way bigger scale than anything before. I… realize you want to help, but this is dangerous.”

Even before anyone opened their mouth, Dick knew that nothing he said was getting through. Even worse, it seemed to encourage them even more. 

“Jaime always knew what he was getting into.“ Bianca spoke again, calming and silently like to a child. If it had been anyone else Dick might have felt annoyed at the treatment. Now he only felt inclined to listen. “We’re just the same.”

“Hey, Mrs Reyes, why don’t you call Guy Gardener?” Paco called from the other side of the room. Nightwing had sense to look disconcerted. Paco shrugged with a smile. “He did help you fix the roof last month.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure Peacemaker already knows it. He would help.” Brenda nodded. “And the Posse, what about them?”

Once again they tuned him out, and Nightwing honestly had no idea what to do. Sadness he could comfort. Rage he could calm. But enthusiasm? Who were these people?

“The Posse?” Paco seemed to consider. Nightwing had no idea who they were talking about. “I don’t think they can go active, but I’ll ask them to keep an eye out.”

“You know what,” The Asian girl stood up and brushed off her skirt. “I’ll jump over to the 52 and see what they got, they might have found something.” At Dick’s confused look she only smiled. “Oh right sorry, I never introduced myself did I? I’m Traci 13, Magician.” And then she was gone in a flash and a cloud of smoke, and by the sound of it, no trick involved.

Paco huffed, laughing under his breath about something sounding awfully lot like “show-off”. This earned him another punch from Brenda.

“Like you doesn’t like going around beating up monsters with your stupid stick.”

“Hey! It’s not stupid! At least I have a weapon…” Paco suddenly looked suspiciously at his friend as she smiled at him. ”…you took something from your Aunt’s collection again didn’t you.”

“It was technically mine, remember the last Alien-invasion? They had these really cool guns… and I can still kick your ass without them.”

Nightwing hung his head in his hands. No doubt he would be the one to not only get three of the youngest heroes kidnapped, but also manage to get a lot of civilians involved in what might be the biggest incident right now.

A hand fell on his shoulder and he looked up to meet the sympathetic face of Alberto Reyes.

“My son might be new to this business, but he has picked up an awful lot of friends.” On the other side of the room Bianca had picked up the phone and was speaking to someone sounding very much like they were in the JLI. From the look on her face the conversation was fully in her favour. Alberto smiled and squeezed his shoulder lightly.

“Honestly, I think he gets it from his mother.”


End file.
